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Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

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Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#61

Post by kincardine »

Someone1234 wrote: post #60
SchizoDuckie wrote: post #12

Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day. App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of your cut' or 'if you don't want us to show ads near your content, reply to this email with "opt out"'

Apple has actual competition for music sales (or music streaming). Namely Google Play Music, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon/Prime Music, Xbox Music, and even ye' olde CDs. With apps, because of the ecosystem isolations, Apple has no competition for access to THEIR user base (which is significant). So even if Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc have their own apps stores of significant size, they aren't competing for Apple's use…

Not to mention, they're also much more heavily involved in the actual content creation for applications (Xcode, Swift/Objective-C, OS X, etc).

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#62

Post by exelius »

SchizoDuckie wrote: post #12

Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day. App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of your cut' or 'if you don't want us to show ads near your content, reply to this email with "opt out"'

I'm guessing Apple just ran the math and decided "A $300 billion company should not damage its brand in a PR fight with a pop singer over a rounding error." Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Apple gets to look like the good guy, the difference is immaterial to most artists, and Taylor Swift gets to feel important.

What upsets me about the whole thing is that Taylor Swift is absolutely not representative of most musicians. Unlike most young artists, she actually owns the recording rights to her albums. Typically you have to complete a 3-album deal where the studio owns the recording rights before you can negotiate terms (and even then only if you're a major musician by that point); but when your father buys a studio and signs you to a deal you get to keep your recording rights.

Taylor Swift's situation is much more representative of an owner of a recording company than an artist. While she's worried about points on the distribution deal, most artists feel that they'll never make any real money off the albums as long as the studios own the rights and just want you to hear their music and start to engage with them in other ways (social media, live shows, YouTube, etc) that they CAN monetize. By paying artists so little for their recordings for so long, recording companies have caused artists to place very little value on the recordings themselves and look to monetize their careers in other ways.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#63

Post by ceejayoz »

FreakyT wrote: post #28

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in this. The music industry has long been using bullying to get what they want, and this is no exception to that rule. The sooner every traditional media company goes out of business, the better the situation will be for everyone -- listeners and artists.

> The music industry has long been using bullying to get what they want, and this is no exception to that rule.

I don't think Apple's negotiators are giving free puppies and flowers when they negotiate either.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#64

Post by Navarr »

brisance wrote: post #40

Some professional photographer is calling Taylor Swift out on her hypocrisy. http://nextshark.com/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-...

This was posted as an HN article and was subsequently deemed irrelevant due to the incredibly different nature of their jobs.

Mostly that, no, photographers shouldn't be able to do whatever they want with photographs of Taylor Swift without her permission. That's how you ruin your brand image.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#66

Post by JohnGB »

Am I then only one that noticed that they didn't say they would be paying the same during the free trial as after the free trial. They could be paying a flat $0.01 fee to each artist regardless of plays, and everything Apple has said would still apply.

I want to know "how much" they will be paying.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#67

Post by mfoy_ »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #54
mfoy_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could just promote the up-and-comers more aggressively. Instead of a redistribution of wealth (which would be talent agnostic) go for a redistribution of coverage. Also, if revenue was diverted completely from top artists to everyone else, what reason would there be for any of those top artists to be there? (Other than as a loss-leader for live shows and a "giving back to the community" sort of charitable thi…

>what reason would there be for any of those top artists to be there? That's why they should do it. To get rid of the facade that this is about helping smaller artists and show people what artists really care about art and which ones care about money. I'm personally offended by Swifts letter. I don't think she really cares about smaller artists, she was just using them to manipulate Apple. We all know that Taylor wil…

So what?

It's not about subsidizing smaller artists; it's about not forcing artists to unilaterally eat Apple Music's loss-leading costs.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#68

Post by goatforce5 »

mfoy_ wrote: post #50
brisance wrote: post #40

Some professional photographer is calling Taylor Swift out on her hypocrisy. http://nextshark.com/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-...

Isn't that apples to oranges? I would think it goes like this: I want to have pictures taken of me during a performance. But I cannot take pictures of myself while performing. So I pay a photographer to take those pictures for me. They are my pictures. I don't care that you took them, I don't care WHO took them. They are mine because I paid you to take them for me. Just like when an app developer makes an app on thei…

> So I pay a photographer to take those pictures for me.

She isn't paying them.

This is for press photographers who want to go to her concert and take pictures of her performing.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#69

Post by Alupis »

exelius wrote: post #62
SchizoDuckie wrote: post #12

Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day. App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of your cut' or 'if you don't want us to show ads near your content, reply to this email with "opt out"'

I'm guessing Apple just ran the math and decided "A $300 billion company should not damage its brand in a PR fight with a pop singer over a rounding error." Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Apple gets to look like the good guy, the difference is immaterial to most artists, and Taylor Swift gets to feel important. What upsets me about the whole thing is that T…

> Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year.

Probably true, however remember Swift recently had the bout with Spotify, leading to the Spotify CEO revealing she was pulling in nearly $6 million a year from them.

Re: Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

#70

Post by smackfu »

pinaceae wrote: post #42

this was a BRILLIANT pr orchestration. blogs, articles, etc all over the globe were written about apple music, for free. would have been far more expensive to buy all that airtime than this little scandal. so taylor swift gets more publicity, apple music is now an established brand name, everyone and their dog knows about their pricing model - holy shit. hats off to the apple team, playing the outrage-piano like no o…

If it was a PR move, why would they capitulate so fast, and on a Sunday? The story is basically done now, a week before the service launches.

I mean, it's not even a trending story on Facebook or Twitter on Monday morning!

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